Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2006/iii/paper-58/4/b/solution

With one marked input, after distinct failed guesses it is uniformly distributed among the untested inputs. Therefore the conditional chance of success on the next guess is . One further failure raises it by
or by a multiplicative factor . There is a different unconditional statement: the marked position is uniform, so and . Thus each additional distinct guess increases cumulative success by , even though the conditional next-guess probability increases after each failure. These distinguish the two possible meanings of a probability boost.

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